A Cheesy Wedding Gift
by quicksilversquared
Summary: By the time Adrien and Marinette's wedding rolls around, the class is running out of prank ideas...until the cheesiest plan of all (literally) pops into their heads. (Marriage Mayhem Pt. 3; can also be read as a stand-alone piece)


By the time Adrien and Marinette got married, their friends were sort of running out of ideas of funny things to do.

"We've done everything," Kim grumbled as the group (minus Adrien and Marinette, of course) sat in Alya and Nino's apartment. "What's there left to do?"

The group shrugged as one. They were all completely out of ideas at this point.

"Maybe Nino and I will come up with some ideas when we go over to Adrien and Marinette's place tonight," Alya said with a sigh. "There's a few last-minute details they wanted to go over with us. Maybe they'll mention something over dinner that we can use against them for the wedding."

"Do you think they'll have run out of cheese again?" Nino joked. "They were going to make this cheese potato casserole last time we were there, and Adrien had to make a special run to the store to get cheese for it because they had somehow run out, and then the time before they were going to do a cracker and cheese platter for appetizers, but they ran out of the cheese," Nino explained to the rest of the group. "It's ridiculous, really."

"Maybe you should bring some cheese as a gift just to make sure you have some," Mylène suggested with a laugh. "It sounds like they could use it."

"Maybe you should suggest that they steer away from serving cheese at their wedding if they have so many problems with actually serving it," Alix added with a snort.

"What I don't understand is how they always run out," Alya said. She rolled her eyes. "I mean, there's literally almost never any cheese in their house, even though whenever I see either of them shopping they're buying, like, a cubic ton of cheese."

Max perked up and lifted a finger. "Actually, the amount of cheese they buy is less than a-"

"Ooh, I just got an idea!" Alix exclaimed, cutting off Max before he could delve too deeply into an analysis of Adrien and Marinette's cheese-buying habits. "So, maybe instead of normal wedding gifts, we could all give them cheese as a gift. It's not as obvious as some of the other things we've done, but it'll confuse them."

There was a pause. A couple people looked dubious, though others were snickering already.

"Uh, or maybe we could do the cheese along with a regular gift," Ivan suggested. "I mean, otherwise that's... it kind of gets a little rude then, doesn't it?"

"All right then, cheese on top of the normal gift," Alya announced when no one else argued. She grimaced and then shook her head with a grin. "When did our group get this weird?"

"Hey, Alix and I weren't the ones who started this bonkers tradition," Kim pointed out loudly before anyone could dream of blaming him. "I'm just saying. Because normally we get blamed for everything weird."

* * *

Of course, Adrien and Marinette weren't going to open gifts at their wedding, so the whole event went off smoothly and without any problems.

Marinette and Adrien were suspicious.

"Maybe they forgot," Adrien suggested hesitantly as he and Marinette danced. "I mean, the last two pranks were kind of, y'know, subdued. They might have run out of ideas."

"Yeah, maybe," Marinette agreed, thinking back to Ivan and Mylène's wedding and Rose and Juleka's wedding before that. At Ivan and Mylène's wedding, the group had managed to get the wedding's DJ to slip in a Smelly Wolf heavy metal remix that Nino had whipped up. It wasn't so heavy that it would scare Mylène, but it was definitely obvious what they were going for and it had gotten more than a few laughs. When Rose and Juleka got married several months after that, random scrapbooking supplies- ribbons, stickers, bits of lace and a couple Polaroid photos that had hastily been taken during the wedding- had rained down on the head table during the reception (Rose had gathered almost everything up and used it in her wedding day scrapbook). In both cases, it was hardly something as huge as the kiss scoring with Alix and Kim or the backwards 'wedding' they had thrown for Nino and Alya. Coming up with ideas like that was difficult, and pulling them off could be equally difficult.

Still, it was hard to believe that their friends would simply _give up_. Kim would rather dance on flaming coals than admit defeat, Alix was just as bad, and Alya didn't let go of ideas once she got set on them. Everyone else was amused enough by the wedding mischief that they wouldn't want to let the budding tradition die.

And still, nothing had happened by the time Adrien and Marinette bid farewell to the last of their guests and were stepping into their car to head back to their apartment for a night before they headed off on their honeymoon.

"That was... odd," Marinette managed as Adrien started the car. "Did they plan something and it fell through?"

"Maybe. We can ask them when we get back from our lovely getaway." Adrien grinned at Marinette. "Looking forward to a week and a half of us time?"

"Mmm. Definitely." Marinette grinned, leaning over to press a kiss to her new husband's cheek. She wasn't going to spend any more time wondering what her friends were up to, not when she had her honeymoon to look forward to. "I can't wait."

* * *

While Adrien and Marinette vacationed, their friends plotted and put their plan into motion.

Most of them wanted to buy the same kinds of cheese that they saw Adrien and Marinette buying most often- Brie and Camembert- and neither had a huge shelf life. Considering that Adrien and Marinette would be receiving quite a few at the same time (all of their friends would be giving them a couple cheeses for maximum comedic impact, they had decided), they had all agreed it was better not to buy it too far in advance.

With three days left until Marinette and Adrien returned from their honeymoon, they were starting to assemble their dairy gifts, wrapping them and bringing them over to Tom and Sabine's apartment to join the normal gifts waiting there. Marinette's parents had agreed to store the wedding gifts since Adrien and Marinette were in the middle of moving apartments and having to deal with the extra boxes would only add more stress to that.

"We'll have to start storing things in the bakery fridges soon," Tom said as he tried to fit Ivan and Mylène's four rounds of cheese into the fridge. There were already six wrapped cheeses wedged into their family fridge, and there was no space left for anything else. "And Nino was talking about getting a round of Brie as big as my face. I'm a little concerned."

Mylène frowned. "We'll figure something out so you don't have to do that," she promised. "Ivan and I can talk to the others. Maybe we can just keep the cheese at home and bring it with us when we come over to watch Adrien and Marinette open their presents."

Tom looked grateful. "Anything to get some space back in our fridge. If you can find some way to let us store things over here but not in our main fridge, we'd be more than happy to keep things here, but right now..." He trailed off, gesturing to the fridge. There really wasn't any space left.

They thought about it for several seconds and then Mylène let out a gasp and clapped her hands together. "Oh! I know! My father has this plug-in cooler that his company uses when they go out on a tour- they plug it into the bus and it turns on just like a little fridge and keeps their lunches cold! They don't have anything going on in the next week, I bet he would let us use it!"

"We might have some problems with Nino and his face-size cheese still, but I think that would work," Tom said with a grin. He regarded the stuffed fridge once more before closing it and turning back to the young couple. "If you can borrow it, you can just plug it in over here. We'd be happy to have it."

* * *

As it turned out, Mr. Haprèle had no problem with loaning out his company's electric cooler. He even tossed in a giant chunk of cheddar as a gift to go along with it.

"This is practically a minifridge," Nino laughed when he saw it wedged into the corner of Tom and Sabine's living room. "Why not just get a tiny fridge if you need that much space?"

Alya elbowed him sharply. "Don't hate on it. It was very kind of Mylène's dad to get that for us."

"It's certainly useful," Sabine said as Nino shuffled around the wrapped cheeses already in the cooler to fit in his gift. True to his promise, he had found a Brie cheese as wide across as his face. He had disguised the cheese in a rectangular box so that it wouldn't stick out strangely in the pile of wedding gifts. "And I'm, uh, sure that Marinette and Adrien will appreciate such a personal gift...?"

Marinette's parents still didn't completely understand the friends' tradition of strange wedding events, though they were certainly open enough to participating.

"Oh, we wanted to ask for your help with one last thing," Alya said suddenly as she remembered something. "So normally friends don't come around and watch the gift-opening, but we kind of wanted to see their reaction to the cheeses. We were wondering if you could find some way to float the idea with Adrien and Marinette. It might seem less suspicious if it's coming from you."

"I think that Adrien and Marinette will be expecting something to be coming from you all no matter how I suggest it," Sabine said with a laugh. "But I'll certainly try. It'll probably be a few days after they get back, so they have a chance to settle back in and finish their moving, but I'll keep you posted."

"That would be great," Alya said. She grinned as she surveyed the full cooler. "Wow, everyone really went all out, didn't they? These are all wrapped like proper presents."

"I really like that wrapping paper on that large one in the corner," Nino said, pointing to one with silver and gold wrappings. "Who brought that?"

Sabine had to think about it for a minute. "Nathaniel, I think. He brought two cheeses. It is a gorgeous paper, isn't it? Pity that it's just cheese inside."

"No, no, it's perfect," Alya said, grinning as she closed the cooler. "The cheese is supposed to be hidden among the other presents. We don't want Adrien and Marinette to be able to tell the difference before they open things up. It'll be funnier that way."

* * *

"I think your friends wanted to come watch you two open gifts," Sabine told Marinette and Adrien when they video called from the airport. "So if you can pick a day..."

Marinette looked surprised. "They do? They didn't for any of the others." Her expression turned suspicious. "Are they up to something?"

"I don't think so, dear," Sabine said, turning so there was no chance of Marinette and Adrien accidentally catching sight of the cooler that was almost full to bursting. They had had to make sure that there was enough space left in the cooler for cold air to flow to all of the cheeses, so a couple of the packages had ended up the fridge. Sabine had been promised that that was the last of it. "I think that they just haven't seen a lot of the two of you recently, since all of you have been so busy. This is just a chance for them to see you."

"I can't imagine that it would be that interesting," Adrien said. He looked just as puzzled as Marinette. "I mean, we're just opening presents."

"But if they really want to come, I guess there's no point in stopping them," Marinette added. She shrugged, apparently deciding not to question her friends' strange behavior. "It'll be nice to see them, at any rate. We didn't really get a chance to talk to them much at the wedding."

"I think that was maybe why they suggested it, dear," Sabine said quickly. It was a perfect excuse. "You all should be able to talk while you two open things. It might not be as fun as an outing, but it's better than not talking to them in person. It's just one of those trade-offs that you have to make as adults with your own busy lives."

"Oh, I guess." Marinette exchanged a glance with Adrien. "Uh, so I think we actually talked about this with Dad before the wedding. The bakery is closed Thursdays, so we figured maybe this Thursday? That would give us a few more days to properly settle into our new apartment, but then we would clear things out of your place sooner rather than later."

"It's no problem to store your gifts, dear," Sabine assured her. "We've been storing almost everything in your room, anyway. But I'll spread the word around. Hopefully everyone can make it with almost a week's notice. Maybe later in the afternoon would be best, so people don't have to leave work too early."

"Maybe around four or four-thirty? I don't want to start too late and make you and Papa eat dinner late."

Sabine beamed at her daughter. The whole conversation had gone far smoother than she had ever expected. "Sounds perfect. I can't wait to see you two again!"

* * *

Twenty minutes before Adrien and Marinette were slated to arrive, their friends descended on Tom and Sabine's apartment above the bakery. Rose and Juleka brought refreshments for them to have while Adrien and Marinette opened their gifts, Ivan and Mylène brought a couple decorations just for celebration's sake, and everyone else brought mischievous smirks. They pulled the real gifts out of the bins that Tom and Sabine had been storing them in and arranged them on the low table in front of the TV and along the counter, scattering the cheese gifts between the others. The prank gifts had an odd chill to them, of course, but there was nothing they could really do about it. Besides, they were wrapped nicely and if Adrien and Marinette were a little distracted, that little detail could easily be overlooked.

And then they waited.

"Don't look so excited, it looks weird," hissed Alya, who looked pretty excited herself. "They're gonna suspect something!"

Max pushed his glasses up his nose and consulted his phone. "Actually, the probability that Adrien and Marinette already suspect something is at least 90%. If we had opted instead to hide and watch them open presents instead, the probability that they would suspect something was up would be much lower, possibly around 20%."

"We wouldn't all be able to hide," Ivan pointed out. "We wouldn't all fit. If we had done a hidden camera or something..."

"Too high-tech," Alix said dismissively, waving a hand. "And does it really matter what they suspect? They're not gonna know what's gonna happen until it's actually happening. Besides, everyone after Kim and I should've expected something was going to happen. Y'all just didn't know what was going to happen."

"That's true," Rose said. "Juleka and I knew that something was probably going to happen at the reception, but we were still really surprised with all of the pictures and ribbons and stickers started raining down."

"They're on their way," Sabine said from over by the door. "They'll be here in three minutes."

The sense of anticipation had grown almost unbearable before Adrien and Marinette entered. Everyone did their best to look innocent. They didn't even come close to succeeding.

"Uh, hi guys," Marinette said as she stepped in the door. She paused to hug her parents before she surveyed the full room. Ivan looked like he was going to explode from anticipation. "It's good to see you, I guess...?"

"You _guess_ ," Alya sniffed, hopping up to hug Marinette. "So much love for your friends, I can barely stand it."

"It's nice to see you all, I'm just confused about why you're here. We're just going to open gifts, nothing too exciting." She eyed them. "...or maybe there is?"

"We're just excited to all be together again," Alix claimed from her spot on the couch. "It's been a long work week and this is the most interesting thing to happen."

Adrien raised a doubtful eyebrow. "Really? Even more interesting than the roller derby match that you covered on Tuesday? I'm gonna guess that the three girls that ended up with broken bones would disagree with you there."

"Well, for _most_ of us it's been a boring week," Nathaniel corrected before Alix could answer and no doubt dig herself even deeper into a hole. "And watching people open presents is fun."

Both Adrien and Marinette snorted at that one. "I think you're thinking of watching _kids_ open presents," Adrien said with a laugh. "They get interesting gifts. I'm not sure how thrilling tea towels are."

Nathaniel only shrugged.

"Well, unless you want a bite to eat first, maybe we should get started," Tom suggested from his spot near the door. He had finally gotten just as much into the prank as the group of friends and had even gotten a cheese of his own to contribute, and he clearly didn't want anyone accidentally spoiling the surprise with their more-than-a-little lame answers to Adrien and Marinette's questions. "There's pastries, of course, and Rose brought some fruit."

"I think I just want to get started, but if anyone wants to eat, go ahead." Adrien eyed the large pile of presents. "...wow, that is a _lot_."

"That's what happens when you have a large family like I do," Sabine said cheerfully, waving him and Marinette to the seats closest to the pile of presents. "We don't see them often, but many of them like sending gifts on occasions like this."

"We'll be here all day," Marinette said with a small laugh as she sat. "...I guess we'll just dive right in, then?"

The first few presents were opened without a problem. The couple had decided to start with the smaller gifts that were perched on the top of the pile, most of which were from Marinette's relatives from China. There were a couple gifts of food- a jar of jam, a box of spices- but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Yet.

Marinette reached for the next closest present, a small rectangular box covered in creamy white paper. She passed it to Adrien to open and then sat back to watch him tear the paper off. Max perked up, recognizing the packaging as from one of his own cheesy gifts. Everyone watched as Adrien peeled away the last of the paper on the small rectangular package and cast it aside before opening the box and glancing down at the present he held.

Nestled inside silver tissue paper was a round of Camembert.

Tucked away in Adrien's pocket, Plagg promptly became much more awake. He sniffed, disbelieving, and cautiously peered out into the room to watch the proceedings.

Adrien held the cheese for several long seconds, expression unsure as he blinked at it. Marinette looked just as puzzled. Clearly neither of them had any idea of what to say. After several more seconds, Adrien carefully set the cheese aside and reached for the next present.

Alix and Kim muffled snickers. Ivan, Nathaniel, and Nino all hid smiles.

Three more presents were opened without incident, and then Marinette reached for another box that was on the smaller side. Rose, who had given that particular present, elbowed Juleka and Max excitedly. A round of elbow-throwing went around the room quickly, all without either Adrien or Marinette noticing. The last scrap of paper fell away, the box opened, and Marinette and Adrien found themselves holding another round of cheese, Brie this time.

"Umm..." Adrien managed, exchanging a quick glance with Marinette. He glanced down at the cheese and then around the room, where there were a number of poorly hidden smirks. He ducked his head and whispered something to Marinette, then set the second cheese aside. They continued with their gift-opening, clearly trying to pretend that everything was perfectly normal.

Seven minutes later, they opened the third cheese. Minutes after that there was a fourth cheese, then a fifth, then a short pause before the sixth cheese gift was opened. They had a quick break for a round of snacks after that.

"How long d'you think they're going to keep pretending that everything is perfectly normal?" Alix hissed to Alya as they each took a croissant from the proffered plate as it was passed around the room. "They've got to say something about it _sometime_."

"They're not even halfway through the cheeses," Alya whispered back. "There's a pocket of them somewhere in there. I give them five more cheeses before they crack."

"It's gonna be boring if they manage to just ignore it all," Alix grumbled, flopping back against the couch cushions. " _Ugh_."

"This is why we all got more than one cheese gift," Alya said as she polished off the last of the crumbs from her croissant. "Because it's funnier this way, and because they can't just _ignore_ it. They'll crack. Eventually."

Except the seventh cheese passed without more than a raised eyebrow, as did the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth. Cheese number eleven got an exasperated sigh from Marinette. Number twelve came close on its heels, with a whole variety pack of soft cheeses packed tightly into a box. The smaller presents were gone now, leaving larger packages left to be unwrapped. Marinette and Adrien relaxed ever so slightly now, clearly expecting to be done with the cheeses. Sabine moved the cooler over and started loading the mountain of cheeses back into it as Marinette and Adrien opened their next few gifts.

"They're not expecting any more," Alya whispered to Alix, who had been shifting more and more impatiently with each opened cheese. "They think they're safely past it. They _have_ to react next time."

"That's what you said before," Alix grumbled, but she settled down all the same. She wasn't the only one getting antsy. Beside her, Kim was looking supremely disappointed that the new couple wasn't making a bigger fuss out of the strange cheese presents. Ivan looked rather as though someone had cancelled Christmas. Over by the kitchen island, Rose was still perched on the edge of her stool in anticipation as she watched Adrien and Marinette like a hawk.

And then the newlywed couple reached for the box holding Nino's cheese gift.

"Don't react, don't react," Alya whispered as Nino shifted in his seat.

"I'm not reacting," Nino hissed back, even as he craned his neck to better watch Adrien and Marinette. "Stop whispering, you'll make them suspicious."

Both of them fell silent as Adrien pulled the paper away from the box and worked the top of the box off. The whole room waited with bated breath as the newlywed couple looked down and spotted the Brie sitting inside.

Both Adrien and Marinette groaned loudly, and Adrien couldn't help the half-amused, half-exasperated smile that slid onto his face. "Really, guys? You couldn't just do a couple cheeses and call it a day?"

No one answered him. Instead, snickers echoed around the room and several covert high-fives were exchanged.

"Next one," Marinette said as Adrien set the cheese into the cooler. It was filling up fast. She reached for the next box and pulled off the wrapping paper cautiously, as though expecting yet another cheese, and then relaxed when she saw the toaster box appear through the wrappings. Seconds later she groaned, flopping back into the couch. Inside the toaster box, several blocks of cheese were wedged in together.

There was a roar of laughter from their friends this time as Marinette pulled the blocks of Cheddar out and passed them to Adrien to put in the cooler. Marinette shook her head, amused despite herself.

In Adrien's pocket's, Plagg's excited quivering increased. The sheer volume of cheese that had been unwrapped was absolutely thrilling- he had never seen this amount of cheese outside of a cheese shop, and there was still a pile of gifts to unwrap. Not all of them were cheese, but unless Plagg's nose was deceiving him, there were still at least a couple cheeses left to be unearthed.

He was going to eat like a _king_ for weeks. This day was shaping up to be much better than he had ever expected.

"Just out of curiosity, how many more of these are there hidden in here?" Adrien asked as Marinette reached for the next gift. "Because, uh, I don't know if all of these will fit in our fridge."

There was a general snickering in the room, but no one offered any answers. Instead, Tom spoke up.

"I think you can borrow the cooler, at least for a little while," he offered, and Mylène nodded. "At least until you make a dent in the cheese. Heaven knows that won't take long, not at the rate you two use it," Tom added, and both Adrien and Marinette flushed but offered no explanation for their mysterious high cheese consumption.

Fifteen minutes later, the last present was opened and the wrapping paper was thrown away. Tom and Sabine were helping Adrien and Marinette pack away their new possessions to bring back to their apartment, and their friends were helping to polish off the last of the snacks that were out. Five more packages of cheese had long since been found and, like the others, had been packed away in the filled-to-bursting cooler.

"So, will you two have cheese the next time we come over and visit?" Alya asked jokingly as Adrien finagled one last chunk of cheese into place and slammed the cooler shut. "Or are you two going to have to do yet another last-minute shopping trip?"

Adrien paused, and a secretive smile spread across his face. "Oh, I don't know," he said rather mysteriously. "Maybe, maybe not. You never know with us and cheese."

* * *

 _A/N: This is the third and final part of my Marriage Mayhem series (the others, if you haven't read them and are interested, are **Scoring the Wedding**_ _(Alix/Kim) and **The Mock Wedding** (Nino/Alya). _

_Like the others, this story is based on something that happened in my family- in this case, it was (originally) my parents getting pranked because my mom's cousin apparently was Deeply Appalled that they used a knife instead of a pizza cutter to cut pizza and so everyone got them goofy "pizza" cutters (one of the cutters was apparently the sort that bakeries use to cut bars and whatnot- several sharp wheels on a adjustable bar). Doing a Ridiculous Number of gifts along a theme for a wedding/anniversary has now become a bit of a tradition in my family, so we have also done gifts of ice cube trays (for a couple that always provides cold lemonade and cookies when anyone visits) and maps (for my grandparents, who loved traveling)._

 _...on a vaguely related sidenote, my grandma on my father's side (the boring side, where I am not getting these ridiculous stories from) cuts pizzas with kitchen shears. Not even with a knife, but freaking **scissors**. So I got her a pizza cutter for Christmas and then she made pizza the next time I came by just so she could use it._


End file.
